


Deciding Your Own Fate

by MuseOfDance13



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Drowning, F/F, Suicidal Thoughts, this is not a happy tag fest damn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 03:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2094582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuseOfDance13/pseuds/MuseOfDance13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You got on that boat with your sister's boyfriend. How did you think that was going to turn out, Sara? </p><p>You accepted the fate that was given to you, but when she comes along, you realize that it was given for a reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deciding Your Own Fate

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [amongst the missing stars in half finished constellations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1230409) by [verbanski](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbanski/pseuds/verbanski). 



> This story is also on my fanfiction account under the name Rushman2.0. I didn't steal it.

~~~~You got on that boat with your sisters boyfriend. She only dated him because you liked him. You wanted her to know what it felt like. You were bitter. Somewhere beneath the anger you knew it was wrong, but you thought she deserved it. Only after did you realize how wrong you were. If you hadn't gotten on that damned boat, none of this would have happened to you. None of the horrible, unthinkable things in your life would have happened. You wouldn't have blood on your hands. You wouldn't feel like your soul is damaged. But you also wouldn't have met her. If you hadn't gotten on that boat, you wouldn't have met someone worth doing those things for. You wouldn't have let her into your life. She wouldn't have taught you what really living feels like. But then, you also wouldn't have forgotten.

When you go under, your heart nearly stops. In that moment, with the freezing water pressing in against your bare skin and his voice screaming your name, you realize what you've done. You were angry, upset, and you made a decision: a decision that is now tearing your world to shreds and burning your life to the ground. Even if you do manage to get out of this alive, nothing will ever be the same. Your sister will never forgive you. And every girl needs a big sister. Someone to guide her through life and tell her the things she needs to know. You gave that up the moment you stepped on that boat. It is that thought that breaks you. Not the freezing water or the fear of death. The loss of your best friend.

After drifting for days, you lose the ability to distinguish between real and imaginary. All you know is that the sun is beating down on you and you're surrounded by water on all sides. It feels cruelly ironic, being so thirsty while surrounded by so much water, and desperation kicks in after a while, flailing you over the edge of your makeshift raft to gulp at the saltwater below. All it does is make you sick, make you feel even worse. You have days to contemplate what you'd done, and each thought deepens the wish that you could just die already. Just end it, there's no point anymore. Being trapped here, alone with your thoughts, your guilt and your regret, is the worst torture. For a moment you feel like you deserve it, but that passes quickly. No one deserves this.

Regardless of whether the little bird is real or imaginary, it leads you to the freighter. And the freighter was real. You yelled, screamed, cried out for help, and miraculously, they came. Sanctuary. Only after they have hauled you from the water and dragged you on-deck do you realize how wrong you were; that you are 20 years old, blonde, tiny, and wearing nothing but lingerie and a tiny silk robe, and they are looking at you with nothing but lust and aggression. They throw you into a cell with no mercy, and you can't help but be grateful that they didn't take what they wanted and throw you back like a too-small fish. A bad catch. They leave you there to plead. They listen to you beg. They hear your cries for help that you know won't come. They laugh.

And then they come back. Drag you from your cell, still half naked, malnourished, and beyond exhausted, and you fight anyway. Fight for your life--or what's left of it. Despite their warnings of pain and punishment, you give them hell. Your father wouldn't have wanted you to give in; you're a fighter, it's in your blood. Then the man, your so-called savior steps up, saves you from them. He brings you to his room, locks the door behind him, and you nod along as he assures you that he means no harm, but your guard has been up for so long you've forgotten how to take it down. He asks for your help, and you know it's the only way you'll survive. You wonder how you got from wanting to die in the middle of the ocean to willing to torture people in order to survive.

But you let him. You don't put up a fight. You let him torture the men in the cages, because the fighter inside of you is stirring, and it wants to survive. And so you fight. You accept what he was doing, not as good or righteous, but as reality. He gives you food, clothing, a semblance of power; he keeps the brutes away. He's good to you, at least. And then he drops a man at your feet, a man you never thought you would see again outside of your nightmares (there you see him every night, along with your sister and every man you've helped torture. They scream. They're always screaming.) You do what's expected of you, what you've done to hundred men before him; you kick him in the ribs to put him in his place, and it almost feels justified after everything he's done. Almost.

You want to scream. You want to run. You want to go _home_. But you're still in the middle of the ocean. You're still fighting for your life. So you stand there, watching the interrogation, and you pray that he won't show recognition. You're not the same reckless children who got on that boat, but he still makes you feel so young, so scared, so dependent and helpless. When he asks you to help him and his friends, you do, because he has torn down all of your walls and all of your strength with one look, and now you can't go on without him. You gave his friend the miracle drug. The friend died. And then you're in the forest, kneeling beside a woman you barely know, with a gun to your head, and he's being given the choice of the gods. The woman next to you was strong, she was a fighter like you. It was clear that he loved her. But he saved you. Out of guilt, or fear, or some long lost love and penance to you or your sister (your sister, whose picture he still keeps in his pocket, whose name he still whispers in his sleep. Who he loves, who overshadows you, who makes him forget that you even exist, who makes him forget all of the ways he has destroyed you, all of the ways that he owes you. He saved you for your sister, and that _burns_ ).

You brace yourself for the bullet, but he dives in front of _you_. It isn't until you're running through the forest, lungs on fire and black warning at the edges of your vision, from a man gone insane with inhuman strength and a furious need for vengeance, that you realize that her blood is running down the side of your face, is matted in your hair, and you don't have time to spare her more than a moment's regret, because you are jumping over fallen trees and following, following, _following_ this man to what will probably be your death. Things are falling apart around your ears, and you want to go home, you want to go home, you want to go home, but he is dragging you forward, onto the freighter, into a firefight, one step closer to the death that this time, you see coming. You stand by, powerless, and watch as the men fight with clouded judgement, watch as explosions rock the freighter, watch as the water pulls you under. Again.

You drift in and out of consciousness for god knows how long, getting the faintest sensory input that, years later when you can finally revisit these memories with a settles mind, you will try to piece together. The blinding glitter of water, again, surrounding you. The burn of unobstructed sun on your body. Wood, hard and pinching, pressing up into your back. Strong hands under your back, and the weightless, swooping feeling of being lifted (it takes you a moment to place that one; you haven't felt it in years). The smell and creak of leather. Cool hands on your forehead, on your chest, on your own hands. A warm, soft weight pressing down on you. A voice speaking in a foreign, lilting tongue.

You are strong enough to wake fully, and you open your eyes, piece together you surroundings. A comfortable bed in an unfamiliar room. Scented candles flickering on an ornamental table. A person, a woman of otherworldly beauty, reading from a worn tome at your bedside. Food on the table next to you. And the hairs prickling up at the back of your neck. If there's one thing you've learned in the past two years, it's that comfort does not come without a price.


End file.
